Sunday, October 31, 2010

In Greece, the bankster loan sharking operation popularly known as the International Monetary Fund has proposed creating special courts and tribunals to prosecute tax evaders. Greek’s finance minister, George Papaconstantinou, a socialist Bilderberg member and a graduate of the London School of Economics, has “suggested the effective management of whistle-blowing” to protect people who rat out tax scofflaws.

“The idea of tax courts concerns either the setting up of special tribunals that would deal with tax cases without having to go through normal courts or the appointment of an adequate number of specialized judges to the existing structure of administrative courts who would deal exclusively with tax cases,” reports Kathimerini, a supplement to the International Herald Tribune in Greece.

The IMF also calls for “exhaustive checks regarding the payment of value-added tax.” Bankers and their cronies in government love the VAT because it legalizes theft at every stage of product manufacture and distribution. It disproportionately raises taxes on middle- and low-income earners. It is a sledgehammer used to wreck societies.

It will get ugly in Greece because the banksters will not get blood out of a stone. Austerity of the sort now imposed on Greece erodes tax revenues. But then the plan is not to raise tax revenue. It is to destroy nations and usher in world government.

Greece went crawling to the globalist loan sharking operation after its economy was imploded through a “monetarist” debt policy. In other words, after Greece joined the eurozone bankers manipulated the country’s money supply and then destroyed the supports with hedge funds and other bankster speculation schemes designed to level national economies.

In April, Greek’s socialist government begged the EU and the IMF for high interest loans. The following month the IMF made demands for “austerity measures” — slash and then freeze public-sector wages, raise taxes, increase value-added taxes, impose new taxes on businesses, cut pension payments and raise retirement ages — in order to pay back the loans issued at high interest and thus impoverish the average Greek.

Monetary and fiscal austerity are designed to implement privatization and so-called “liberalization,” a nice word for removing restrictions on the inflow and outflow of international capital as well as restrictions on what transnational corporations and banks are allowed to buy, own, and operate in foreign countries. Banksters accomplish this by stacking up debt and then demanding “structural readjustment” that results in fire sales and the selling off of national treasures and assets to the bankster vulture class. In June, the Greek government put some of its 6,000 islands on the market.

“Debt is an efficient tool. It ensures access to other peoples’ raw materials and infrastructure on the cheapest possible terms,” writes Susan George in A Fate Worse Than Debt.

“The huge multinational banks and corporations in particular love the IMF,” writes Ron Paul. “Big corporations obtain lucrative contracts for a wide variety of construction projects funded with IMF loans. It’s a familiar game in Washington, where corporate welfare is disguised as compassion for the poor.” Most “recipient nations face huge debts they cannot service, which only adds to their poverty and instability,” Paul adds.

Now the IMF has set its sights on the Big Kahuna, the United States, and its analysts have “estimated a series of probabilities regarding the amount of increased debt a country might be able to sustain without hitting its projected point of no return,” the Washington Post reported in September. “In the case of the U.S., the fund said the odds were roughly three out of four that the country could increase its total debt to some degree without being penalized by investors.”

According to the IMF’s calculations, the United States finished 2009 with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 85%. “The current trend projects the United States to finish 2010 at 94% and 2011 at 98%. The 90% level has become the IMF’s make-or-break point for countries hoping to grow their way out of debt. If the government debt load climbs above 90% of GDP, economic growth slows so much that growth is no longer a viable solution for reducing that debt, and the IMF insists on austerity measures,” notes Activist Post.

It looks like austerity measures and new tax schemes are in the works for America. Glenn Beck and the RINO intelligentsia are all for squeezing more money out of the workers to pay off a never-ending bankster debt. Beck is in agreement with the former Fed mob boss Paul Volcker and Obama’s Goldman Sachs dominated Economic Recovery Advisory Board. It is our duty to pay the bankers.

It looks like, as well, the U.S. will ultimately get the same sort of tax courts and tribunals the IMF proposes for Greece since there is no shortage of tax scofflaws in America and no shortage of state-worshiping bureaucrats eager to fill the prisons and coming-soon slave labor penal workhouses with a fresh crop of victims.

BLENDZ NOTE: HOPE YOU DONT MIND (MUZUZUZUS) ME PUTTING YOUR ARTICLE HERE(IF YOU DO LET ME KNO & I'LL TAKE IT DOWN).I'M NOT NARROW-MINDED, I DO TRY TO SHOW BOTH SIDES OF THE COIN SO TO SPEAK :)

There Be Dragons!
Wednesday, 11 August 2010
Posted by muzuzuzus

How the patriarchy demonized the Dragon~~~~~~~~~~:

"Myths are not artistic embellishments, fairy stories men make up to amuse themselves and their fellows; they are the very heart and brain, as it were, of the social organism, necessary for its survival -- as that particular society." The Manufacture of Madness, (p.121)

Remember all the stories and films you've read and seen with the main character, the 'hero', attacking dragons, and killing dragons? Has this propaganda made you view dragons, reptiles, as bad? If so don't be so hasty, for Monica Sjoo liberatingly informs us, in her book, 'The Return of the Dark/Light Mother or New Age Armageddon?, the mythological dragons represent from the Goddess earth-centred perspective~are~ the Goddess and are protecting nature, as well as guardians of Trees of Life which connects life and death!
We have thus been indoctrinated, watching and reading and imbibing about how 'mr hero/saint/god destroys the Dragon', thereby being conditioned to accept the 'hero's' inheriters legacy of excuses and actions for their continuing to destroy Earth. Of course by 'destroy' I don't mean as in the end of Earth as a planet, but more so the continuance of the attack on the quality of life for all, and the threat to the human species--following in a long line of other species who have been made extinct which continues.

Jonathan Ott reveals in his books how patriarchal religions have suppressed the real halluconogenic sacrament and replaced it with an empty placebo, thus not allowing ,even the memory of this ancient knowledge and experience, nor people to have direct natural spiritual experience. To experience nature in all its sexual ecstatic potentials in relationship.

Sjoo shows how even the so-called New Age Movement reveals a patriarchal worldview, with belief in a "Christ Consciousness" and how it is supposed to be superior to nature, nature being an 'enemy' to its fulfilment, and thus nature needs to be 'put right'. This belief system would explain their general disdain for psychedelics, regarding a very ancient means for deep communication and sense of relationship with nature.

Some leading New Agers do, however, confess now to having taken psychedelics, in David Icke's case the South American sacred plant, Ayahuasca, but he explains his experience in very world-negative terms---claiming a female voice told him that nature ("3 D reality") was an illusion conjured by evil 'reptiles' to keep humans trapped and having to be reborn here again and again to serve the elite, themselves supposedy a shapeshifting hybrid with the proposed entities. Yet again we have preached to us the ongoing patriarchal antagonism towards the reptilian species (dragon!! and thus the natural world) but this time with a modified modern twist where 'they' are presumed to be actual interdimensional entities, and connected with 'ETs', and/or entities that are in cahoots with the major rich families on the planet of which Icke, in his anti semitic rants, directly connects with the Jewish Zionists as the central evil conspiracy.

In the so-called 'scientific arena' we are led to believe that this world is untainted by the patriarchy, and/or New Age beliefs, because science&scientists operate with reason, especially and particularly via their 'scientific method':

"The enthronement of reason is the chief achievement of post-Enlightenement 'Modernism' in its rebellion against centuries of religious dogma and uncritical acceptance of authority. Science is acclaimed as Modernism's finest fruit..." The Mechanical and the Organic: Virtual Reality and Nature .
So the irony is that the adherents of the emerging scientific worldview 'rebelled' against a phony scam! The orthodox religious dogma with its 'truth' and symbolism. Empty symbolism without actual substance and meaning when divorced from original depth, meaning, and roots of the symbols they had tried to subvert towards their own ends.

So-called 'spirituality' having left a bad taste in the mouth, with its fascistic rules, oppression, and violence, torture, and mass murder - the 'new kids on the block' eventually 'throw it out' and deify 'reason'--ie., mechanical reason without spirit/soul, feeling, depth, and connection with nature in a sensual way. But willy nilly these unresolved subverted symbols, not understood, and consciously rejected, become unconscious and carry on acting out inwardly and onto the world and others.

Sjoo reveals how early invading patriarchal men and their 'gods' were "insatiable" for Soma/hallucinogens----As have been other nature-negative, or world-denying cults.
I think this is such an important thing to know! It reveals that the romantic notion which believes psychedelic experience must always be 'sacred' is just not true if by 'sacred' the mindsets so affected view with disdain other species, women, nature, and even their own physical bodies, and sexuality.
It is also liberating to know because it doesn't disenfranchize our natural self---the self before it eats the sacred plant or substance. Any psychedelic experience is therfore more a continuation, like good sexuality must be with the life of the body in relationship, rather than some 'state' which must be superior to natural life, and the body. The first prerequisite is to feel and understand we are nature. To love, and desire nature, and/or your partner, the experience will go as deep as your feeling will yield to it, and not try and control it.

Now, the 'serpent people' (the indigenous people of the land who recognized lunar mythology of the Goddess) know Goddess contains both light and dark, like the moon in its phases was understood to do, but the 'sons of light' (ie., the males who were part of the solar cults, who identified themselves solely with the 'good light' as opposed to the 'bad darkness'), do not believe their solar god has anything to do with darkness, and that the latter was a mistake and must be defeated, or there must be continual conflict between light and dark.. So the CLUE to be aware of is this patriarchal division between light and dark--consequently also implying a division between what was believed to represent light, and body, repectively sun, mind/spirit, thought of by that androcentric worldview as male, and for body, woman, and nature--which becomes the 'mind/body dualism'.

The patriarchy fear the dark and thus reject it, but you can't reject 'it', for it is not an it, bur rather a process which always involves light. You can't have one without the other! ( Note it is hard for the abstrating terms of thinking to think as process for in the very terms of describing process you 'have' to say "one" and "other"). Therefore what they reject they unconsciously project. Thus their behaviour becomes what they hypocritically shout against--'evil', and is ongoingly poisoning nature and the soul itself.
A very powerful example is fear of 'dark' people, and the need to persecute them to justify the 'rightness' of the 'white/'light' race'. This is what is meant about the symbolism unresolved, and not understood becoming unconscious. The fear of darkness is still there, which includes dark skin, and sense of the 'other', albeit cleverly conceiled to oneself--and others-- and justified rationally in the 'reasoning' brain--which is really irrational. The same for their myth of the Theory of Evolution, a myth which has been used by the 'superior reasoning class' to subjugate those peoples deemed to be not as evolved as those who 'reason' that to be the case.

Patriarchal religion proclaimed spirit was transcendent. Patriarchal science proclaims nature is mechanical. Notice that both worldviews remove spirit from nature--thus devaluing the Goddess (who represents nature as a process of matter and spirit--you cannot have one without the other)--for nature and the Goddess have always been related.

The diagram shows you how 'spirit' and 'matter' dramatically change in the hierarchy once scientific materialism takes over the major power role away from the church. In both worldviews it is made sure to the people--the victims of their oppressive myth-- that 'matter' has nothing to do with 'spirituality'!

Myths can be alive and liberating or they can be stifling and oppressive to body, and mind, and all that you need to live~~others and nature. Also not just for humans. Other anceint myths, such ss native America myths/stories would include animals, for example, and honour them as our relations.
In our materialistic myth millions of animals are captured and bred for a lifetime--however short and misreable that may be--of what they term 'animal testing, and vivisection'! All reasoned out as for the betterment of human life.

Maybe it is hard to see yourself under an oppressive mythic system--that is the power of propaganda. The image that can help is imagining yourself a prisoner in a loud clanking jail:

So there you are in that institution--the jail. Can you hear the oppressive lonely clanking sounds echoing all round? The harsh geometric lines and grim colours of the surfaces hurt the eye. The hard light. You were born here! This is all you know. You are told that this is it. This is reality. Through the barred windows you can see the large expanse of blue sky and rolling clouds, the green hills, woods, and streams, and feel wisps of fresh breeze caress your face through the grill, but you've always been told that all that belongs to the owner of your jailhouse. If you tell his representative, the screws, you are unhappy, or hallucinating/stir crazy they explain that you must be suffering from a physical disease which they term mental illness. They have pills, such as 'anti-depressants', and 'anti-psychotics', etc, and electric shock treatment, which suppress emotions. These help you carry on doing the jobs which help keep the jailer very rich, and his screws also get a good share.
But what is really making you feel bad is that you feel something is wrong. Bad food, environment, both physical and psychological.
Because you've been born into this environment you don't know the roots, That this jailer built the jail for his own power and oppression over you. You are being lied to, but aren't quite sure... And if you take these pills these emotions may subside, or you may kill yourself.

See the patriarchal (rule of the father) game: By disenfranchising nature patriarchal man proclaims: "You need ME!" --in its theocracy this 'me' is as the priests who are claiming to be intermediaries between you and 'God', and this enforced dependence gives them power.

With scientism, the new 'priests' are the scientists, not as intermediaries to a 'God' though, who they claim to have not any use for any more, but rather - their presumed to be - vastly superior mechanical knowledge and ability to dis-cover reality using their 'scientific method'.

The patriarchal mindset wants more and more control.

What is this need for control?

A way to approach this question is to checkout a central social controlling myth of these 'scientific' times--the myth of 'mental illness'. The pushers, supporters, and authorities of this myth very rarely look at themselves as being 'mentally ill', but label more and more people, including children, as having disorders/diseases of the biological organism.
An example, so-called 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder'. A person with 'OCD' usually is seen as ritually doing things which however seemingly strange are a way to bring an order in their lives which may seem chaotic and confusing to them. They may keep washing hands repetetively, or count certain numbers obsessively before doing a task, etc. This demand for order is really a fear of chaos, and 'lack of control'. An irrational anxiety of what could happen IF they didn't carry out certain rituals so as to attain some seeming order.

Well if you look at the history of the solar cults and the patriarchy, or if you prefer the 'dominator model', we see this same demand for control via obsessive ritual though on a much larger scale, and it is in reaction to nature and the Goddess which has been seen to be chaotic by the insane rationalism of a typical male warrior mindset. Where light is worshipped and darkness feared. Death is seen as chaos.The darkness and chaos is unknown and therefore cannot be analyzed and brought under some kind of perceived and preconceived order. Of course the greatest fear of this worldview is DEATH! And it is therefore no surprise that the great dream of this scientific dictatorship--'transhumanism'--seeks to mechanically 'conquer' disease and death!

"...there seems to be a sense from ancient peoples that death was not feared the way we fear it today. There is evidence that death was seen as part of life not its opposite. A belief in regeneration is the same belief in the scientific axiom that energy is neither created nor destroyed." Energy changes form. So we change form when we die. If early people were able to celebrate this, why can't we? We have become frightened of life's cyclical pattern as we have attempted to control nature--which has become more and more of an obsession.
Controlling nature is impossible. It is terribly egocentric to think that nature is ours for the taking. What would our lives be like if we lived in the conscious psychic experience of this cyclical pattern? Would we be afraid of dying. Would we be able to accept death as a change of form rather than fear it as an end?
The aspect of the Goddess associated with death and regeneration is the Crone--also symbolized in reality as the Dark Moon--as well as with such mythical aspects of the Goddess as serpent-headed Medusa.

When you look at the patriarchal mythology you will see these mythologiocal feminine archetypes maligned, attacked, and censored--just like the Dragon. Medusa was the patriarchal 'hero's' Underworld enemy and just one look into her eyes turned him/men to stone. 'Death'. Death seen by the warrior cultists not as the great liberator without which life could not be, for death and life are the warp and woof of reality, but rather as a curse to fear and conquer.
This is why the mythological aspect of the Goddess, the Crone, has been and continues to be so feared by them.

ROME -- An Italian prosecutor has asked for a stiffer sentence for a CIA station chief convicted in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric in Milan.

Twenty-three Americans, including Robert Seldon Lady, then a CIA station chief in Milan, and two Italians were convicted in November for the kidnapping. It was the first conviction anywhere in the world involving the CIA's extraordinary renditions program. All Americans were tried in absentia.

During the appeals trial, prosecutor Piero De Petris asked on Thursday that Lady's initial eight year sentence be increased to 10 years in prison.

He also requested the court overrule the previous decision to acquit two other officials: Jeffrey Castelli, the former Rome CIA station chief, and Nicolo Pollari, the former head of the Italian military intelligence.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CGE) - A federal subpoena, issued by Ohio attorney Cliff Arnebeck and sanctioned by the Office of Ohio Secretary of State, was served last Sunday in Washington to Karl Rove on his way to an appearance on the CBS news program Face the Nation.

CNN, CBS capture video of subpoena servicing to Karl Rove

The process service for the subpoena reported that CBS and CNN camera men "captured video" of the event.

In an article written by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman and published at OpEdNews.com, the federal subpoena orders Rove to testify in deposition about his role in the alleged theft of the 2004 election, and to discuss his orchestration of tens of millions of corporate/billionaire dollars in this year's General Elections on November 2.

Contacted Wednesday to comment, Arnebeck, a Columbus attorney with a long history of involvement in election related cases, notably as plaintiff attorney in the on-going King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal lawsuit that Fitrakis and Wasserman have used to try to question Rove on an election they say the Republican campaign expert stole for George W. Bush in 2004, said of his role in the 2010 election cycle, "Rove has asked for all this money on behalf of the Republican candidates’ campaigns. Under Citizens United that still constitutes a gift to those campaigns and is still subject to limits and prohibitions of campaign finance laws. Camouflaging the gifts by running them through nice sounding non-profit corporations is nothing but the latest form of money-laundering.”

Responding to a question on the involvement of the Office of Ohio Secretary of State and the Secretary herself, Media Relations Coordinator Kevin Kidder issued CGE this statement: "Because we are a defendant in that lawsuit I can’t really talk about the specifics of the case. Sorry I can’t be of more help."

In a telephone conversation, Arenbeck confirmed that top officials in both the offices of Secretary of State and Attorney General who were familiar with the case approved him issuing the subpoena to Rove.

Arnebeck says Rove will now likely contact his attorney, Bob Luskin, who will file a motion in federal court in Washington, D.C. to quash the subpoena. A hearing date will be assigned at which the parties will make their arguments, Arnebeck said.

Under Rove's orchestration, Arnebeck said, the money raised as a result of the US Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, which allowed corporations to funnel unlimited amounts of funds into political races, is being used to "wipe Democrats out of Congress and to take control of the apportionment process at the state level throughout the country."

He argues that Rove is the de facto head of a coordinated Republican national campaign in which Tom Donahue of the Chamber of Commerce is a senior partner, while the Republican National Committee, under leader Michael Steele, has been relegated to junior partner status.

Sudden, mysterious death of Republican computer Guru Connell recalled
In a hearing conducted shortly before the presidential election in 2008 that garnered little attention from national or local media, Arnebeck deposed Michael Connell, Rove's former chief computer guru, whose long history working for the Bush family, and subsequently in Ohio as a contractor with Republican Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell during the 2004 election, is well documented.

Fitrakis and Wasserman write that Rove used Connell to establish the electronic tools and architectural framework through which the vote count manipulations that shifted the election from John Kerry to Bush were accomplished.

Arnebeck was in the process of deposing Connell a second time when the Ohio-based computer expert and experienced professional pilot died in a fiery plane crash while landing at his home airport in Canton in December, 2008. For conspiracy theorists, the fact that Connell had been deposed the day before the November 2008 election only adds to the mystery of circumstances surrounding his sudden death, and whether Rove can be tied to it in any way.

Rove affidavit details
According to an affidavit of the process server, Brad Bokoski, the civil case subpoena (Case Number: 2:06-CV-00745) was served on Rove at 10 a.m. on October 24, 2010 at 2020 M Street, Washington D.C. Bokoski said service took place "on the sidewalk in front of the address and was captured on video by CBS and CNN camera men."

Lotter said the agency is merely being cautious with the approach of an early-December deadline when thousands of Indiana residents could see their unemployment benefits end after exhausting the maximum 99 weeks provided through multiple federal extension periods.

"Given the upcoming expiration of the federal extensions and the increased stress on some of the unemployed, we thought added security would provide an extra level of protection for our employees and clients," he said.

Some offices have had guards for nearly two years but those guards were hired on a regional basis, meaning some offices had armed guards while others did not, Lotter said.

The cost of the armed guards varies dramatically around the state. Lotter said the agency is trying to be more consistent and that it plans to employ armed guards in all 36 offices where unemployment insurance benefits are handled.

The overall cost for the security is $1 million, paid for with federal funds designated for administration of the unemployment system, Lotter said.

Other agency offices that provide job training or are not full-service branches will continue to have unarmed guards.

Lotter said state employees in the affected offices have also recently gone through stress-management training in which they learn how to respond appropriately to angry clients.

"This is a stressful time for people in the economy," he said. "That's why we're not only taking this step (of hiring guards), but we're also increasing our training for our staff to be able to help people as they're trying to cope with these changes."

About Those Packages —
that "credible terrorist threat" — coming just before Election Day.
By Ann Althouse

October 28, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- It's the big story. I haven't written about it yet. I didn't know what to say as the story was unfolding yesterday. I had the thought — and I immediately censored myself — what does this have to do with Election Day? I cut myself off from that line of thinking because, of course, the war on terrorism transcends the petty vicissitudes of partisan politics. I readjusted my consciousness to suit an image of myself as a decent person.

Last night, I was listening to the podcast of the day's Rush Limbaugh show, in which he was seeing the news in real time and reacting out loud. He started where I did: the timing so close to the election. But he didn't censor himself. And this is what I love about Rush. He keeps going, expressing those thoughts you might get to yourself if you let your mind run free:

No matter how you look at these packages-on-the-airplane stories, it's either done by terrorists as a dry run or all of this is being hyped by our government. If it's the terrorists, then who are they trying to help right before the election? What are they trying to affect here? And if it's the government hyping it, then it's clear the administration thinks that this will help them, that this will help Democrats.

I mean, this is being the done the weekend before the election. Who would Al-Qaeda being trying to help here? Clearly they're imposing themselves on our election. If it's the government hyping it, then it is clear the administration thinks this will help them. Right? One way or another, this is being hyped real big. All of the cable nets have gone wall-to-wall with this. Somebody is trying to say something here, and somebody is trying to affect the outcome of something.

This is thrilling radio, people. Completely unplanned. We get to watch — hear — the gears turn. This is bold thinking out loud, and he doesn't know where he's going.

The question is: Who's trying to help who? If the terrorists are doing this, are they trying to stop the Republican progress or guarantee it? If it's the administration, then they must think that this ultimately would help them.

He's using the classic "who benefits?" approach to reasoning. Why would it help the administration? Or, as Rush says, why would they think it would help them? I'd say that the 2010 elections have been focused on the economy and domestic policy. If we refocus on foreign threats, that at least keeps us from looking at what's hurting the Democrats the most. Even if generally, people think the GOP is stronger on national security, if we suddenly feel very threatened, the reaction would be to unite behind the President, whoever he is, and to want to protect him from any weakening forces, like, perhaps, a hostile Congress.

If the threat of terrorism is present in our minds, then we place a much higher value on continuity and stability. Our hostility to things as they are suddenly flip,s and we love what we have and become vigilant lest anyone tear it away from us. Let's coalesce behind our President and help. I know that's what I felt on 9/11. I had never supported President Bush before that day, but then all I wanted was for him to do well, and I couldn't tolerate the carping and the criticism that made his work more difficult than it already was.

The rest of Rush...

Now, is it a coincidence? The Democrats have always said that "cargo" was a weak spot, that our ports and things like this were the weak spots, and that was the reason they wanted to kill the Dubai Ports Deal, because cargo is our weak spot. So the thing they have always claimed is being shown to be true, so how does this help them? The only way it can be shown to help them if you have a press conference from Obama saying, "We caught it, we stopped it, we're vigilant, we care. (chuckles) I'm not a Muslim, I wouldn't allow this." Whatever he says. We'll just have to wait and see how the regime handles this.

Fortunately, folks, we don't have to worry about the Obama regime using fear of terrorism to help him in the elections like the Bush team did, right? That was always the charge. Every time we got an increased threat level near an election, the charge always was, "It's not true. This is just Bush trying to help himself in the election." Okay. We don't have to worry about this with this bunch, right? They're clean and pure as the wind-driven snow. They would never politicize something like this, right? So, you don't need to have a bomb to commit terrorism. That's what all this shows. Closing down and disrupting so much air travel without a bomb. This is terrorism, in a sense. They got everybody terrorized. Everybody's scared now. What's going on here? We're talking about it. Everybody's wondering about it. So clearly somebody is sending a message for some outcome. Somebody's trying to affect something. So we'll see.

SANA'A, Oct. 30 (Saba) – No UPS cargo planes left Yemen to other countries in the last days and there are no direct flights from Yemen to the United Kingdom or the United States, a Yemeni official said, after allegations that British and U.S. officials had found suspicious packages on planes that originated in Yemen.

The official wondered how the media mentioned the name of Yemen reporting that an explosive device was found onboard a cargo plane that landed in London coming from Yemen.

UPS planes never land or take off in Yemen, the official made clear.

The security measures at Yemeni airports are tightened and the authorities search passengers and luggage well, the official said, adding that Yemen has recently installed modern checking systems that can detect dangerous or suspicious materials to the safety of passengers and planes.

We urge the media not to make hasty judgments about sensitive issues and the media should wait until investigations reveal the truth, the official said, as he pointed out that Yemen has launched an investigation into the allegations and planned to coordinate with the United Arab Emirates, Britain and the U.S. over the issue.

Yemen is determined to continue the war on terror in cooperation with the international community until it roots out all terrorists who pose threat to all, the official concluded.

Mike Gravel, famous for the Pentagon Papers that revealed the lies the public and Congress were told by the Johnson administration about Vietnam, has gone public for 9/11 Truth. He met with members of WeAreChangeLA to discuss starting an initiative in California that would put an investigation of 9/11 on the 2012 ballot.

Inquiry Finds U.S. Official Set Up Spy Ring in Asia
By MARK MAZZETTI
Published: October 28, 2010

Via
WASHINGTON — A senior Pentagon official broke Defense Department rules and “deliberately misled” senior generals when he set up a network of private contractors to spy in Afghanistan and Pakistan beginning last year, according to the results of an internal government investigation.

The Pentagon investigation concluded that the official, Michael D. Furlong, set up an “unauthorized” intelligence network to collect information in both countries — some of which was fed to senior generals and used for strikes against militant groups — while masking the entire operation as a more benign information operations campaign.

The inquiry concluded that “further investigation is warranted of the misleading and incorrect statements the individual made” about the legality of the program, according to Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.

Reached by telephone on Thursday, Mr. Furlong was angry about the conclusions of the investigation, saying that nobody from the Defense Department ever interviewed him as part of the inquiry.

“This is a lot like kangaroo court justice,” Mr. Furlong said.

He said that his work had been approved by a number of senior military officers in Afghanistan, and that he had never misled anyone about what he was doing.

“They only talked to one side, and those are the people running for cover,” he said.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered the investigation after The New York Times reported on the existence of the network in March. The inquiry was carried out by Michael Decker, a top aide to Mr. Gates for intelligence issues.

The results of the Pentagon investigation are classified, and Defense Department officials gave few specifics about the accusations.

Mr. Furlong, a senior Air Force civilian official, has been barred from his office in San Antonio for several months. The Air Force inspector general is conducting a separate investigation into the matter, to determine whether Mr. Furlong broke any laws or committed contract fraud.

Pentagon rules forbid the hiring of contractors as spies. Military officials said that when Gen. David H. Petraeus, then the top commander in the region, signed off on Mr. Furlong’s operation in January 2009, there were specific prohibitions against intelligence-gathering, including hiring agents to provide information about enemy positions in Pakistan.

The contractors were supposed to provide only broad information about the political and tribal dynamics in the region — called “atmospherics” — and “force protection” information that might protect American troops from attack, the officials said.

But some Pentagon officials said that over time the operation appeared to transition into traditional spying activities.

Mr. Furlong’s network, composed of a group of small companies that used agents deep inside Afghanistan and Pakistan to collect intelligence on militant groups, operated under a $22 million contract run by Lockheed Martin.

One of the companies used a group of American, Afghan and Pakistani agents overseen by Duane Clarridge, a Central Intelligence Agency veteran best known for his role in the Iran-contra scandal. Mr. Clarridge declined to be interviewed.

Officials said that the contractors delivered their intelligence reports via “Hushmail,” an encrypted e-mail service, to an “information operations fusion cell” at a military base at Kabul International Airport. There, the reports were put into classified military computer networks and used either for future military operations or intelligence reports.

The contractors continued their work for weeks after Mr. Gates ordered the investigation, sending dozens of reports to the fusion center. The Pentagon finally let the contract lapse at the end of May.

Colonel Lapan said the investigation concluded that Pentagon rules governing intelligence operations needed to be more clearly defined and that “better coordination and de-confliction of both intelligence and information operations is required by staffs at all levels.”

BUENOS AIRES (Dow Jones)--Argentine bonds posted big gains and stocks hit a new record high Thursday as markets anticipated a more business-friendly environment following the death of former president Nestor Kirchner.

While presidents from across the region and supporters filed past Kirchner's coffin to pay their last respects, Argentina's Merval Index of leading shares topped a new record, rising 1.17% to 2954.86 points.

The element of manipulation in US elections is immense. Under conditions of a political monopoly of two right-wing big business parties, legally enforced by ballot access restrictions and a host of other barriers to third party campaigns, torrents of corporate campaign cash, and the exclusion of anti-capitalist views by the corporate-owned media, elections in America have far more to do with the ruling class’s recalibration of policy and changes in its governing personnel than with the democratic will of the people. The sentiments and desires of the people can find no genuine expression within the existing political framework.

Next Tuesday’s midterm elections are no exception. With Election Day less than a week away, it is clear that, whatever the precise breakdown of Democrats and Republicans in the new Congress and in statehouses across the country, the outcome of the vote will be a further shift to the right by the Obama administration.

This pivot to even more overtly anti-working class policies flies in the face of popular sentiment, which is moving to the left. However, the semi-official narrative of the election, relentlessly promoted by the media, is that the American people, in the midst of the deepest economic and social crisis since the Great Depression, are rebelling against even the most minimal forms of social relief and clamoring for fewer regulations for the banks and corporations and more tax cuts for the rich.

The supposed embodiment of this “grass roots populism” is the Tea Party movement. In reality, it is largely a media creation, massively funded by billionaire Republican reactionaries and having only a small popular base.

The Washington Post on Sunday published an article summarizing the results of its own survey of the Tea Party, which found it to be a “disparate band of vaguely connected gatherings that do surprisingly little to engage in the political process.” The newspaper was able to make contact with only 647 groups linked to the Tea Party, some of which involve only a handful of people. “The findings suggest that the breadth of the tea party may be inflated,” the Post concluded diplomatically.

The basic function of the Tea Party is to help shift the entire spectrum of official politics in the US further to the right.

That this pseudo-populist formation has been able to some extent to tap into popular discontent, and that, more broadly, the growth of anger fueled by mass unemployment and social distress has to this point found expression only on the political right is the result of the uniformly reactionary policies of the Obama administration and the exclusion of any genuinely left-wing alternative from the political system.

It is a staggering indictment of the Democratic Party and American liberalism that two years after the electorate decisively repudiated the war-mongering, pro-corporate policies of Bush and the Republicans, the Republicans have seized the political initiative and are set to make major gains in Tuesday’s election, perhaps capturing control of the House of Representatives. This is not due to any surge in support for the Republican Party. Most opinion polls show it to be even more unpopular than the Democrats.

If the Republicans make significant gains on Election Day it will be the result of a collapse in support for the Democrats, expressed in the abstention of millions of working people and youth who voted for Obama two years ago in the mistaken belief that his promises of progressive change were genuine. These illusions have been widely shattered by the administration’s refusal to offer any policies to create jobs or provide serious relief for the millions of unemployed, many of whom are losing their homes and their savings and being driven into poverty.

Instead, Obama has continued and deepened the right-wing policies of the previous administration, both abroad and at home. Even in the stretch run before Election Day, he has been unable to distance himself from the financial-corporate elite, in recent days lifting the moratorium on drilling in the Gulf, rejecting calls for a moratorium on home foreclosures, and announcing that retirees on Social Security will receive no cost-of-living increase.

Obama in recent days has been touring the country demanding that Democratic voters turn out to elect embattled Democratic candidates. His speeches have been utterly demagogic, employing hollow populist phrases without any content. Before a large student audience at the University of Southern California on Friday, he declared, “I need you to keep on believing. I need you to keep on hoping. We are going to restore the American dream for not just some, but for everybody in this great land.”

With consummate cynicism, he has attacked the Republicans as tools of Wall Street, focusing on their demand to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the rich, even as top administration officials have sent feelers for a compromise to allow most, if not all, of the wealthy to retain their tax windfalls, and White House aides have given interviews appealing for the Republicans to join with the administration after the election to cut social spending and raise taxes on consumption.

At the University of Minnesota on Saturday, Obama denounced the Republicans for cutting taxes “mostly for millionaires and billionaires,” even as Vice President Joseph Biden in an interview on Bloomberg TV was offering to raise the threshold for tax cuts from $200,000 a year to an unstated figure. Some Democrats are proposing making the cutoff $1 million in annual income.

There are indications that Obama would welcome a Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and a reduced Democratic majority in the Senate. He has conspicuously campaigned in the run-up to the vote exclusively for Democrats locked in tight Senate and gubernatorial races, not for threatened Democrats in the House. A divided Congress with greater Republican strength would provide a pretext for dropping even small-scale stimulus measures, and give the administration political cover for ending extended benefits for the long-term unemployed.

In a lengthy interview with Peter Baker published earlier this month in the New York Times Sunday magazine, Obama seemed to accept loss of the House as inevitable. He suggested that a Republican victory would make Republicans more willing to collaborate with his agenda. The article quoted a “senior White House official” giving an unambiguous signal of the rightward trajectory of the administration after the election.

“You’ll hear more about exports and less about public spending,” the official said. “You’ll hear more about initiative and private sector and less about the Department of Energy. You’ll hear more about government as a financier and less about government as a hirer.”

On Monday, the Times published an article on the post-election plans of the administration citing officials with the same message. “After two years of operating at loggerheads with Republicans,” the Times wrote, “Mr. Obama and his aides are planning a post-election agenda for a very different political climate. They see potential for bipartisan cooperation on reducing the deficit, passing stalled free trade pacts and revamping the education bill known as No Child Left Behind…”

The article quoted Obama’s education secretary Arne Duncan saying that bipartisan agreement on the administration’s school “reform” agenda could help repair “the current state of anger and animosity.” Duncan is among the most right-wing figures in the Obama cabinet. He has spearheaded an unprecedented assault on public education, promoting for-profit charter schools, the closure of public schools, and mass layoffs and other attacks on teachers.

The article also noted that Obama’s new chief of staff, Peter Rouse, “had good relations with Republicans when he worked on Capitol Hill.”

The article’s premise, backed up by comments from Democratic officials, that Obama has to this point failed to “reach out” to the Republicans is farcical. Ever since his election, he has labored to rehabilitate the Republican Party and rebuild its credibility. He took the unprecedented step of retaining Robert Gates, Bush’s defense secretary and the architect of the military surge in Iraq. He even made an unsuccessful attempt to appoint right-wing Republican Senator Judd Gregg, a deficit “hawk” and favorite of Wall Street, as his commerce secretary.

The reality is that the Republicans decided to stonewall and oppose every Obama initiative, except his expansion of the war in Afghanistan, having calculated correctly that Obama’s pro-corporate, pro-war agenda would rapidly alienate those who had voted for him.

Obama set the stage for a pivot to austerity measures when he announced last February the establishment of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. The body, tasked with drawing up a plan to eliminate the budget deficit by 2015, is scheduled to issue its recommendations on December 1. It is expected to call for the phasing in of major cuts in Social Security and Medicare as well as regressive taxes on consumption. Its report is intended to set the tone for discussions on sharper attacks on working class living standards during the second half of Obama’s term.

The trajectory of the Obama administration gives the lie to all those who claim that the Democrats can be pressured to carry out progressive reforms and that the growth of right-wing forces can be halted by appealing to the Democratic Party. This perspective—promoted by left-liberal publications such as the Nation and pseudo-socialist groups such as the International Socialist Organization—is bankrupt.

What is required is a decisive break with the Democratic Party and the two-party system and the development of a mass socialist movement of the working class. The coming weeks and months will see the emergence of major struggles of the working class, providing the conditions for the building of such a movement. The critical question is the building of the Socialist Equality Party to provide the necessary program and leadership.

George Bush thought 9/11 plane had been shot down on his ordersMemoirs reveal former US president gave order to shoot down any hijacked planes before United Airlines flight 93 crashedJames Meikle guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 October 2010 12.15

George Bush initially believed the only plane not to reach its intended target during the 11 September attacks had been shot down on his orders, according to leaks from the former president's memoir of his two terms in office.

Bush reveals that he gave the order for any further suspected hijacked planes to be shot down after the first aircraft were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York during the 2001 terror attacks.

He at first thought the crash of United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania had resulted from this instruction, although it later emerged that passengers had stormed the cockpit as hijackers flew the plane towards the Capitol building in Washington.

The memoir, Decision Points, is due to be published on 9 November, in the aftermath of the US midterm elections, and Bush is already lined up for interviews on the Oprah Winfrey and NBC Today shows.

The Drudge Report website says the very personal book opens with the line: "It was a simple question: 'Can you remember the last day you didn't have a drink?'" as Bush deals with the well-known issue of his alcohol consumption.

His drinking has previously been said to have come to an end when he woke up with a hangover following his 40th birthday celebrations.

In a chapter about stem cell research, he describes receiving a letter from Nancy Reagan detailing a "wrenching family journey", but says: "I did feel a responsibility to voice my pro-life convictions and lead the country toward what Pope John Paul II called a culture of life."

Bush goes on to describes an emotional July 2001 meeting with the Pope, who had Parkinson's disease, at the pontiff's summer residence.

The Pope reportedly recognised the promise of science but implored Bush to support life in all its forms.

At the pontiff's funeral in 2005, Bush – after a reminder from his wife, Laura, that it was a time to "pray for miracles" – said a prayer for the ABC news anchor Peter Jennings, who had cancer.

The book is said to stay clear of criticising Barack Obama, and a source told the Drudge Report: "You will find the president strong, loving life, and ultimately at peace with the decisions he made."

Foul drinking water is killing Haitians in the first epidemic of cholera on the island in over a century. Behind the TV images on German television of the misery lies a tale of international corruption and malfeasance that goes directly to former US President Bill Clinton and leading families of the so-called Haitian Oligarchy. According to Haitian civic organizations donations that could have provided permanent clean water are not being used to do so. Instead, the money is part of a racket by so-called “poverty aid” NGOs to earn huge financial gain off the outpouring of international contributions to the victims of the January devastating earthquake.

A cholera epidemic has just killed 284 Haitians and at least 3,612 more are infected and may die. This cholera is caused by drinking dirty toxic water."

According to Haitian nationals the fact that almost a full year after international governments, led by Washington, pledged billions of dollars in reconstruction help to hundreds of thousands of Haitians left homeless from the quake, the responsibility lays directly at the door of Bill Clinton, appointed UN Special Envoy to Haiti, de facto Haiti Economic Czar, controlling the Haitian economy with emergency powers.

Clinton and US Agribusiness

When he was US President, Clinton destroyed Haiti’s domestic rice production with subsidies to large agribusiness rice farmers in his home state of Arkansas. Currently he is promoting a scheme to use Haitian cheap labor to compete with Chinese labor making textiles for the US garment industry.

Bill Clinton told a March 2010 US Senate hearing that he “regretted” the impact in Haiti of the free trade policies he pushed as President. "It may have been good for some of my farmers in Arkansas, but it has not worked. It was a mistake," Clinton said. The rapid lowering of agricultural trade barriers in Haiti combined with US government food aid policy allowed American agribusiness to flood Haiti with cheap surplus rice forcing tens of thousands of local farmers out of business. According to the Associated Press, six pounds of imported rice cost at least a dollar less than a similar quantity of locally-grown rice.

Prior to Clinton’s "free trade," Haiti could feed itself, importing only 19 percent of its food and actually exporting rice. Today, Haiti imports more than half of its food, including 80 percent of the rice eaten in the country. The result is that Haitians are particularly vulnerable to price spikes arising from global weather, political instability, rising fuel costs and natural disasters, such as the earthquake. Since the January earthquake, imported rice prices are up 25 percent.

Ezili Danto, of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network has issued a call for Haitians living abroad as part of what she calls the Haitian Diaspora to contribute to effective means of getting clean drinking water to the population and ignoring de facto predator NGOs out to profit from the misery and death in Haiti. “We've had 10-months and more of such "help" and know what to expect,” she says. Danto accuses the US State Department’s USAID of contracting out to private firms who in turn are literally, “making a killing off the poverty business,” as well as using the disaster to push Monsanto GMO seeds on Haiti.

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah was the agricultural programs director for the pro-GMO Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and on the board of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). AGRA and the Gates Foundation work closely with Monsanto and its research arm, the Danforth Center, pushing GMOs in Africa.

Real aid is blocked

Despite the billions donated to Haiti after the disaster, reportedly less than 15 percent of the $4.7 billion pledged for 2010-11 at the UN Donors Conference in March has been disbursed. Donors tend to prefer large, known groups to small community ones. "The large charities have a lot of money in their bank accounts that's not getting spent in Haiti," said Melinda Miles of the Haiti Response Coalition, a consortium of local groups formed after the quake. "To be honest with their donors, and really be accountable to the Haitians whose names they used to raise the money, they need to put it into Haitian-led plans."

The American Red Cross as of August had spent only a third of the $480 million it raised for Haiti after the quake. Country spokeswoman Julie Sell said that was a result of “careful auditing and an effort not to dump money blindly on unproven projects.” That $480 could have provided a lot of deep water wells for clean water.

Basic clean water

Cholera comes from contaminated water or food, often contaminated by feces. Cholera can kill someone within a day if untreated, from fluid loss through diarrhea and vomiting. The old and the young are most vulnerable. Right now the infection is an epidemic according to direct reports. There has not been such an epidemic in the region for a century. In Haiti now more than one million people live in tarps or tents in fields. When it rains the sanitary conditions and the mud are often abysmal. [1]

The January earthquake disaster entirely destroyed the clean water infrastructure of Haiti’s largest city Port au Prince. Prior to the earthquake, a third of Haiti didn’t have access to clean water. Now with over one million displaced Haitians forced to flee to rural areas outside of the city, tens of thousands are finding themselves in areas that don’t have clean water. Haiti’s rural areas mostly rely on water from polluted mountain streams. According to Lane Wood of the New York-based organization, Charity: Water, “We know that 80 percent of all disease is caused by lack of basic sanitation and lack of clean water.”

A UN Report released in March 2010 said that dirty water kills more people each year than all forms of violence combined including war. According to the WHO, of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old and 80 percent of all disease is caused by lack of basic sanitation and lack of clean water, says Wood.

In the US Congress, the Haiti Empowerment, Assistance, and Rebuilding Act sponsored by Senator John Kerry was introduced on May 5, 2010. This bill authorizes $500 million in new spending for Fiscal Year 2011 (beginning September 30). The total amount of USAID, State, and Defense Department “humanitarian assistance” to Haiti already provided is $1,139,632,618.

According to the United States Agency for International Development’s website, as of September 24, 2010 the United States government had provided $1.1 billion in humanitarian assistance to Haiti for the earthquake. That money cannot be obligated until the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, wife of Haiti’s czar, Bill Clinton, reports to the House and Senate on how the money will be spent and that clear and achievable goals and oversight controls have been established. According to Ezili Danto, of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, less than half of cent of each dollar of that $1.1 billion went to the Haitian government. Most of it went to finance the 82nd airborne landing and activities in Haiti right after the earthquake. ‘It is debatable whether that was ‘humanitarian assistance to Haiti for the earthquake,’ she noted.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton then pledged at the March 2010 Donors meeting $1.15 billion for Haiti reconstruction. “That money has yet to be delivered,” Danto stressed.

The duplicity of international Third World charity organizations and health issues is best typified by the world’s largest private foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which recently announced plans to “donate” some $10 billions to vaccinate every child in Africa. That sum of money to provide sanitary drinking supplies would do far more to save lives than all the vaccines in the world.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Fugitive actor Randy Quaid has claimed Perth star Heath Ledger was one of many celebrities "whacked" by a group of Hollywood criminals from whom he is now on the run.

Quaid and his wife Evi are seeking refugee status in Canada after fleeing over the border from the United States, claiming their lives were at risk.

The actor, who played a supporting role alongside Ledger in the Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain, said he was being hunted by a gang of Hollywood "star-whackers" who already had a long list of celebrity victims.

"Up until a year ago Evi and I had never had any run-in with the law whatsoever," he said.

"We are not criminals nor are we fugitives from justice. Nor are we crazy. We are simply artists and filmmakers who are being racketeered on."

The brother of actor Dennis Quaid then broke down when he told a gathered media pack about how the criminal group had some of Hollywood's biggest names in its sights.

"We believe there to be a malignant tumour of 'star-whackers' in Hollywood," he said.

"How many people do you know personally who have died suddenly and mysteriously in the last five years?

"I have personally known eight actors, all of whom I have worked with and was close to - Heath Ledger, Chris Penn, David Carradine among them.

"I believe these actors were whacked and I believe many others, such as Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Mel Gibson, are being played to get at their money."

The couple are wanted in the United States on vandalism charges. The day after they arrived in Canada last Sunday, a California judge issued an arrest warrant for them after they failed to appear at a mandatory court hearing on charges they had been illegally squatting in a home they owned years ago.

Quaid was arrested in September on suspicion of burglary and entering a building without consent. Evi Quaid was booked on those charges, as well as resisting arrest.

This year, they were arrested on charges of failing to pay their bill at a California hotel. Evi Quaid was forced to pay $US10,500 in restitution in that case and she pleaded no contest to defrauding an innkeeper.

All Air Force medical facilities stopped vaccinating against anthrax on Oct. 26 after officials determined that many treatment centers administered expired vaccines earlier in the same month.

In a memo issued Oct. 26, Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark Ediger, commander of the Air Force Medical Operations Agency in San Antonio, said the stand-down would remain in place until treatment centers can confirm the vaccine stock they have is current. But Ediger also said that confirmation that corrective actions had been taken were to be sent to the AFMOA by close of business Oct. 27, according to a copy of the memo obtained by Military.com.

The only exceptions to the stand-down will be for personnel slated to deploy prior to Oct. 29 if the center can confirm that its vaccine supply is current, the memo states. If the available vaccine has passed its expiration date, the medical centers must follow waiver procedures set up by the Air Force Central Command Surgeon General's office.

Also before anthrax vaccines may be routinely administered again, the medical centers will have to verify that everyone who handles them completes a review of the proper instructions on vaccine expiration, administration and documentation, the memo states.

"This must include all personnel involved from point of entry of vaccine supply into the [medical treatment facility] through point of service care to the patient and documentation," Ediger said. Ediger's office is coordinating with the Assistant Surgeon General, Health Care Operations, as well as the vaccine manufacturers, about following up on patients who may have been inoculated with the expired vaccines.

Though it is still unclear how many Airmen may have been treated with an expired dose, the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program, or AVIP, requires troops assigned to high-threat areas to be inoculated against a potential infection.

The vaccination program was originally begun in 1998, but then ran into a number of legal battles as some servicemembers balked at taking the vaccine. Court rulings and injunctions essentially halted the military's mandatory program between 2003 and 2006, when the current anthrax vaccine program was established. The treatments resumed in February 2007.

Under AVIP, servicemembers not deploying to high-threat areas do not have to take the vaccine.

How to Brand a Disease - and Sell a Cure
Posted By Dr. Mercola | October 29 2010

ViaThe manner in which prescription drugs are marketed today can be readily understood if you read the 1928 book "Propaganda," by Edward Bernays, the father of PR.

Bernays knew that public relations business was less about selling things than about creating the conditions for things to sell themselves.

Pharmaceutical marketers, following in his footsteps, sell drugs by selling diseases -- a system known as "disease branding." Illnesses such as panic disorder, restless legs syndrome, bipolar disorder, and ADHD were once considered rare until a marketing campaign transformed the brand in order to sell more drugs.

According to CNN:

"If all drugs were harmless, disease branding would be relatively harmless, too. But no drug is completely benign ... Detrol can make elderly people delirious and may cause memory problems. Paxil is associated with sexual dysfunction and dependence ... Side effects like these are a part of every drug. But they are never part of the brand."

Former Governor of Minnesota, ex-Navy SEAL and retired pro-wrestler Jesse Ventura has renewed the call for a new investigation into the events of 9/11 in the face of dramatic new evidence that is coming to light every week.

“You’ve got all this evidence but clearly when you look at what happened, and the results of all of it, it shows clearly that these commissions and these official government investigations are frauds.” Ventura told nationally syndicated radio host Alex Jones.

“They don’t seek the truth, they are there to simply push the government’s story of whatever that may be – what they want said about what happened.” Ventura continued as he and Jones presented and analyzed previously unseen video and eyewitness accounts from September 11 2001 that suggest secondary explosions were a contributing factor to the destruction of the World Trade Center.

“When you look at the whole commission, it got run by Zelikow, who comes right out of the White House – he was the guy in charge. If they didn’t unanimously agree on something, it wasn’t even entered into it.” Ventura noted, also adding that the 9/11 Commission failed to even mention the total and symmetrical collapse of building 7, a 47 story skyscraper that was not attacked on 9/11, yet fell straight down into it’s own footprint later the same afternoon.

“Anything that doesn’t fit into their scenario, they just ignore.” Ventura added.

The former governor also noted that originally there was never even going to be an investigation into the attacks of any kind, and that it was only via pressure from the victims’ relatives that a commission was appointed.

“When pressure came from the families and they demanded an investigation, well who’s the first person they come up with to run it? Henry Kissinger. Well, there was outcry and outrage over that because of all of his contacts and everything he’s into… Then you look at it from a logical point of view, did they really and truly want to investigate?” Ventura stated.

“Well when you learn that they spent a hundred million dollars to investigate Whitewater – where ultimately in the end I guess they learned that the president cheated on his wife – and then initially for the murder of 3,000 people at 9/11, they allocate 4 million. It ended up going to 12 or 13 million in the end but that alone should cause you to say there wasn’t a real investigation going to be done here.” he added.

Ventura also commented on the recent video releases from NIST, following Freedom of Information Act requests. Yesterday we highlighted a newly discovered video in which the director of the FBI in New York is seen interviewing firefighters after the collapse of one of the trade towers, and discussing “secondary hits” being responsible.

“NIST has all this information in their possession, and yet their report chooses to ignore it and not even mention it. How much more simple can it be for someone out there to look at that and go ’something is rotten in Denmark here’.” Ventura said.

“Shouldn’t they have at least addressed it and said that ‘well we had many reports of firefighters and officials saying bombs were going off’, and then give an explanation as to why these people were wrong?”

Ventura also had harsh words for the corporate media and it’s culpability in allowing a cover up to prosper.

“You have to remember, the mainstream media is not the ally.” Ventura said.

“I’m just baffled, it’s beyond words. The mainstream media, was supposed to be our fourth branch of government, the unwritten fourth branch by our forefathers. Their job was to be the check, to be the watchdog and watch the other three branches of government and keep them honest, and now that they have sold us out we are in dire straights.” he added.

“These stories should be the lead stories on TV right now. Not do downgrade you or I, but the only place they are hearing them is on your radio show and a few other non mainstream outlets.” Ventura told Jones.

“I’m getting censored more and more. The access that I had two years ago, I had way more two years ago than what I’m getting now. I’m being cut back too, I can’t get on all the shows I’d like to get on anymore.” he added.

Ventura also vilified the media’s portrayal of 9/11 researchers, noting that “The mainstream portrays 9/11 truthers as being some fringe element and some wild crazy liberals or whatever they are out there.”

“They don’t realise that the 9/11 truth movement, the great majority of it is professionals. These are not people that are crazy, in fact they are courageous because they are putting their professional integrity on the line to ask the questions.” Ventura asserted.

WASHINGTON — Halliburton knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job, the presidential commission investigating the accident said on Thursday.

In the first official finding of responsibility for the blowout, which killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in American history, the commission staff determined that Halliburton had conducted three laboratory tests that indicated that the cement mixture did not meet industry standards.

The result of at least one of those tests was given on March 8 to BP, which failed to act upon it, the panel’s lead investigator, Fred H. Bartlit Jr., said in a letter delivered to the commissioners on Thursday.

Another Halliburton cement test, carried out about a week before the blowout of the well on April 20, also found the mixture to be unstable, yet those findings were never sent to BP, Mr. Bartlit found.

Although Mr. Bartlit does not specifically identify the cement failure as the sole or even primary cause of the blowout, he makes clear in his letter that if the cement had done its job and kept the highly pressured oil and gas out of the well bore, there would not have been an accident.

“We have known for some time that the cement used to secure the production casing and isolate the hydrocarbon zone at the bottom of the Macondo well must have failed in some manner,” he said in his letter to the seven members of the presidential commission. “The cement should have prevented hydrocarbons from entering the well.”

The failure of the cement set off a complex and ultimately deadly cascade of events as oil and gas exploded upward from the 18,000-foot-deep well. The blowout preventer, which sits on the ocean floor atop the well and is supposed to contain a well bore blowout, also failed.

In an internal investigation, BP identified the faulty cement job as one of the main factors contributing to the accident and blamed Halliburton, the cementing contractor on the Macondo well, as the responsible party. Halliburton has said in public testimony that it tested and used a proper cement formula on the well and that BP’s flawed well design and poor operations caused the disaster.

Jesse Gagliano, a Halliburton technical adviser, told federal investigators in Houston in August that the company was confident in the cement job. He said Halliburton initially recommended that BP use a well design with more devices called “centralizers.” But even after BP chose to use six centralizers instead of the recommended 21, Halliburton believed the cement would work properly, Mr. Gagliano said.

“All indication at the surface was that everything went fine,” he said. “We plan for success.”

The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was operated by a third company, Transocean.

Cathy Mann, a Halliburton spokesperson, said the company was reviewing the panel’s findings and would provide comment later Thursday.

Halliburton, a major oil field services company and one of the nation’s largest defense contractors, was once led by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Bartlit’s law firm, Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott, has done legal work for Halliburton in the past but has not represented the company since 2005, the firm said.

After the commission report was released at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, Halliburton’s stock price began dropping sharply, and was down more than 10 percent in mid-afternoon trading. BP shares rose slightly.

The commission obtained from Halliburton samples of the same cement recipe used on the failed well, including the same proportion of nitrogen used as a leavening agent and a number of chemicals used to stabilize the mixture. The cement slurry was sent to a laboratory owned by Chevron for independent testing.

The mixture failed nine separate stability tests designed to reproduce conditions at the BP well and did not pass any, according to Chevron’s test results, which were returned to the commission this week.

“Although laboratory foam stability tests cannot replicate field conditions perfectly,” Mr. Bartlit’s letter said, “these data strongly suggest that the foam cement used at Macondo was unstable. This may have contributed to the blowout.”

One and a half gallons of the actual mixture used on the doomed BP well survived the accident and are being held as evidence in ongoing criminal and civil investigations.

Shortly before technicians began pumping cement slurry down the well on April 19, Halliburton conducted one last test of the cement slurry. The company changed some of the conditions of the test, and appeared satisfied with the result, although those findings were not communicated to BP until after the well explosion, the commission found.

The commission concluded: “Halliburton may not have had — and BP did not have — the results of that test before the evening of April 19, meaning that the cement job may have been pumped without any lab results indicating that the foam cement slurry would be stable.”

Further, the panel found, “Halliburton and BP both had results in March showing that a very similar foam slurry design to the one actually pumped at the Macondo well would be unstable, but neither acted upon that data.”

The commission, appointed by President Obama in late May, is led by Bob Graham, the former governor and senator, and William K. Reilly, a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr. Bartlit, who conducted a much-praised investigation of the 1988 Piper Alpha blowout in Britain’s North Sea, which killed 167 workers, said that even if the cement failed on the BP well, it was not the whole story of the accident. Many human and mechanical failures combined to create the disaster, he said, and backup systems were skipped or ignored.

“Because it may be anticipated that a particular cement job may be faulty, the oil industry has developed tests, such as the negative pressure test and cement evaluation logs, to identify cementing failures,” he wrote. “It has also developed methods to remedy deficient cement jobs. BP and/or Transocean personnel misinterpreted or chose not to conduct such tests at the Macondo well.”

A group trying to register voters in Houston received threats and emails containing racist slurs after being targeted by a local tea party group accusing it of "voter fraud."

In emails obtained by TPM, the group Houston Votes was accused of being "a bunch of white guilt ridden assholes, NIGGERS and greasy mexican spics," "fraudulent Marxist pigs," and "American hating A-holes."

"We received a couple of threats and several harassing e-mails," Maureen Haver of Houston Voters told TPMMuckraker. "There have been several efforts, I think, just trying to race-bait and stir racial tension and part of that I think is just based on what we've received in messaging from them."

"It's really had a chilling effect on our office," said Haver, adding that one of the e-mails was reported to the FBI.

Here are some of the e-mails, which Houston Votes provided to TPMMuckraker:

"i hope everyone of you American hating A-holes are thrown in prison for cheating our country and trying to assure socialism.GO TO HELL."

"I see you're all into fraud. Why do you want to change Texas? You want it to be like a third-world nation? Texas is great - and you want to change it into a third world state. No thank you. Your fraud won't work. You were caught red handed. Live with it. We know all about it."

"Citizen's from all over Texas will be coming to Houston to watch you fraudulent Marxist pigs. Be forewarned, you will be watched at every turn, and your corrupt Marxist organization will be targeted!"

"You liberial scumbags should be hung by the neck in public ! We are on to your voter fraud. Keep it up you MOTHER FUCKERS and you will soon be put down for a long dirt nap! Your nothing but a bunch of white guilt ridden assholes, NIGGERS and greasy mexican spics! The WAR is comming and we are going to dispose of each and every one of you while we take OUR (White) nation back."

Houston Votes was targeted by the Texas Tea Party group King Street Patriots in their so-called anti-voter fraud effort "True The Vote." At one meeting, King Street Patriots leader Catherine Engelbrecht even went as far to as to accuse the group of being the headquarters of the New Black Panther Party.

Texas Democrats has since sued Leo Vasquez, the Republican Tax Assessor Collector for Harris County, after he held a press conference accusing the group of voter fraud based on KSP's claims -- a press conference that, in fact, featured members of the the King Street Patriots.

True The Vote also put together a video raising the threat of voter fraud which features soaring music. "Think it can't happen in your town? Think again!" reads one message. "Our elections are being manipulated. By the RADICAL LEFT," the video says.

The video originally featured a doctored photo of an African-American voter holding a poorly photoshopped sign -- featuring Comic Sans font -- that read "I only got to vote once." That part of the video has since been edited out.

Watch the edited video:

The U.S. Justice Department is currently gathering information about alleged incidents of voter intimidation in Harris County, where the King Street Patriots is reportedly part of a broad GOP effort to recruit poll-watchers.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Israel's right wing starts its own Tea Party Barack Obama has become a target for the Israeli right following the creation of a pro-settler Tea Party who plan to hold a "Saying No to Obama" rally.
By Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem
Published: 6:06PM BST 27 Oct 2010

The new movement, which has taken inspiration from the US conservative group, is being spearheaded by disaffected former and present members of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party,

When it holds its inaugural rally in Tel Aviv on Sunday, the movement's stated target will be Mr Obama, the US president, whose call for a halt to Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank has caused anger on the Israeli right. The Likud party has long opposed the creation of a Palestinian state.

According to Michael Kleiner, a former Likud legislator who is one of the driving forces behind the movement, Mr Obama's policies towards Israel resemble the British attitudes in eighteenth century America that caused the original Boston Tea Party.

"We believe President Obama is trying to force us to do things that most Israelis believe are very dangerous," Mr Kleiner said. "We are being blackmailed to sacrifice our security and vital interests by another country, which is unprecedented."

"We also believe Netanyahu is crumbling and is going to give in on the [settlement] freeze."

The Palestinian leadership has effectively frozen its participation in peace talks until Mr Netanyahu decides whether or not to extend the settlement moratorium.

Sunday's rally, which will draw several serving Likud legislators, will also be an uncomfortable reminder of the backbench rebellion, led by Mr Kleiner among others, that forced Mr Netanyahu to call an early election in 1999, which he then lost.

Monsanto's Many Attempts to Destroy All Seeds but Their Own
Posted by poorrichard at 7:52 AM

There is a reason why I believe Monsanto to be one of the most evil companies on the planet, and this is in large part due to its activities relating to controlling food production through controlling the seeds to produce it.

For nearly all of its history the United States Patent and Trademark Office refused to grant patents on seeds, viewing them as life-forms with too many variables to be patented. But in 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court allowed for seed patents in a five-to-four decision, laying the groundwork for a handful of corporations to begin taking control of the world’s food supply.

Since the 1980s, Monsanto has become the world leader in genetic modification of seeds and has won at least 674 biotechnology patents, more than any other company.

This is not surprising, considering they invest over $2 million a day on research and development!

But Monsanto is not only patenting their own GMO seeds. They have also succeeded in slapping patents on a huge number of crop seeds, patenting life forms for the first time -- again without a vote of the people or Congress. By doing this, Monsanto becomes sole owner of the very seeds necessary to support the world’s food supply … an incredibly powerful position that no for-profit company should ever hold.

Do they defend this blatant attempt to control the food supply? They write on MonsantoToday.com:

“Patent protection allows companies to see a return on their investment which enables further investment in R-and-D and product development. This profit-investment cycle drives product innovation that is responsive to farmer needs.”

Farmers’ needs?
Farmers who buy Monsanto’s GM seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seeds or sell them to other farmers. The result? Farmers must buy new seeds every year, and they must buy them from Monsanto.

Meanwhile, these same farmers who Monsanto is claiming to help are being aggressively targeted and pursued for outrageous patent infringements on these same seeds.

The “Seed Police”

Monsanto employs an arsenal of private investigators and agents who secretly videotape farmers, snatch crop samples from their land and even fly helicopters overhead to spy -- all to catch farmers saving or sharing seeds.

As of 2005 Monsanto had 75 employees and a $10-million budget solely to investigate and prosecute farmers for patent infringement.

And until recently, Monsanto has even been known to sue farmers for GM crops growing on their land that got there via cross-contamination. In other words, a neighboring farm’s GM seeds blew over onto their land, and Monsanto slaps them with a lawsuit.

I realize this seems incredible, but it is true.

Have You Heard of Terminator Seeds?
Creating and promoting GM crops is, in my opinion, a major threat to public health. Patenting those same seeds takes it to an even higher level of evil. But there is another reason why I don’t believe for one second that Monsanto has the virtuous intentions they claim: terminator seeds.

Monsanto is considering using what’s known as terminator technology on a wide-scale basis. These are seeds that have been genetically modified to “self-destruct.” In other words, the seeds (and the forthcoming crops) are sterile, which means farmers must buy them again each year.

This solves their problem of needing “seed police,” but they are obviously looking the other way when it comes to the implications that terminator seeds could have on the world’s food supply: the traits from genetically engineered crops can get passed on to other crops, and often do.

Once the terminator seeds are released into a region, the trait of seed sterility could be passed to other non-genetically-engineered crops, making most or all of the seeds in the region sterile.

Not only would this mean that every farm in the world could come to rely on Monsanto for their seed supply, but if the GM traits spread it could destroy agriculture as we now know it.

How Can You Get Through to Monsanto?
First, I urge you to get informed on the issue by watching The Future of Food. This in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind genetically modified foods is one of the best documentaries I have ever viewed. It will help you understand the very real threat that ALL future generations face as a result of genetic engineering.

Next, hit Monsanto where it counts … their bottom line. By boycotting all GM foods and instead supporting organic (and local) farmers who do not use Monsanto’s GM seeds, you are using your wallet to make your opinions known.
This means abstaining from virtually all processed food products (most are loaded with GM ingredients) and sticking to fresh, locally grown, organic foodstuffs instead.

The True Food Shopping Guide is a great tool for helping you determine which brands and products contain GMO ingredients. It lists 20 different food categories that include everything from baby food to chocolate.

I’ve also compiled an excellent list of resources where you can still find pure, GM-free foods, and I encourage you to refer to it often and also share it with your friends and family.

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RP

Connecting the dots between different events that go unreported (or under-reported), as a whole, in our mainstream media. Come learn what many do not know, but what many are waking up to. Knowledge is power.